The Waipawa Mail FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1883. THE RABBIT PLAGUE.

Waipawa Mail, Volume 5, Issue 609, 14 December 1883, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1883. THE RABBIT PLAGUE.

About a year ago, under the above heading, we referred at considerable length to devastations of the hordes of rabbits which have over-run ports of the south and north islands. At that time, while admitting to the full the evil of the plague, and advocating all legitimate means for its suppression, we took a course opposed to our contemporaries in the matter of the suggestion to eradicate rabbits by inoculating them with the germs of tuberculosis. We were not only the first in New Zealand to point out what we considered the dangers of tuberculosis infection, but have stood nearly alone ever Bince, only one or two newspapers throughout the colony having adopted our views. It is therefore a matter of congratulation to us to find our remarks confirmed by no less an authority than the Lancet, the organ of the British medical profession. Our readers will remember that we described tuberculosis as the foundation and source of the allied forms of disease known respectively as scrofula and phthisis (consumption), and pointed out the danger likely to accrue to cattle and human beings by an artificial multiplication of the tuberculosis germs in rabbits. Supposing rabbits to be successfully infected, so as to produce a diminution of their numbers, it follows that the germs of the disease will Booner or later become communicated to higher forms of animal life. Modern writers on tuberculosis state that the origin of the disease is a very minute microscopical animalculum, which can be conveyed by the atmosphere from one body to another, thus causing the spread of the disease. Rabbits dying of tuberculosis will necessarily be swarming with the animalcuhc, and these, as the bodies of the dead rabbits moulder into dust, will be blown about by the winds. Sheep and cattle grazing in the infected pastures are likely to acquire the disease first, but its final acquirement by man, after the disease is once largely present in the country, is only a question of time. The so-called “ invention” of the tuberculosis scheme for rabbit destruction is a veterinary practitioner in Victoria, of whom the Lancet says he is “ more ingenious than scientific.” The article in the Lancet we refer to appeared in the issue for the 13th of October last, aud after referring to the proposal generally concludes as follows :—“ No doubt rabbits are peculiarly liable to become tubercular, but the certainty of contagion through the medium of the atmosphere is not conclusively established even for them. Admitting the possibility of infection of the whole community of rabbits in the manner suggested, there is another consideration besides the cruelty of it. To disseminate tuberculosis broadcast over the country would be an act much like cursing, as the Arab proverb describes that exercise. The germs would surely ‘ go homo to roost’ in the operator’s family.” That is to say, the highest medical authority in the world asserts that artificially inducing tuberculosis in rabbits is simply working for the infection of humanity with

the same terrible disease. This more than bears out our contentions of a year ago, when it pleased some who had not considered the question to stigmatise our words as unnecessarily alarmist. We confess to having been alone in our contention when we wrote, and to have been in a small minority since, as most of our contemporaries jumped at tuberculosis as a rabbit destroyer as though the scheme involved wisdom more than human, but the arguments of the Lancet show that it is not always necessary to be in the majority to be right. This question is of great interest to sheepfarmers threatened with'an influx of rabbits, for nothing seems more certain than, if tuberculosis be employed as an agent for rabbit destruction, the operator is risking the health and lives or himself and family, and of numberless others besides. Every sensible person will admit the magnitude of the evil wrought by the rabbit plague, and of the necessity for coping with it in a firm manner, but, after the Lancet’s warning, a resort to the artificial inducement of a subtle, loathsome, and dangerous disease will be nothing short of criminal. There are plenty of other resources, in the way of poison, suffocation by patent exterminators, &c., but even if there were not, ik would be highly immoral to risk infecting the health of a nation even to get rid of rabbits. It is to be hoped the need for any form of rabbit destruction in Hawke’s Bay will be obviated by keeping the plague outside the province, but should the contrary unfortunately occur, it will be wise for the inhabitants of the district to adopt means to prevent propagation of tuberculosis.